As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process, store, and communicate information. One option is an information handling system. Information handling systems generally process, compile, store, and/or communicate information or data for business, personal, or other purposes. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow information handling systems to be general purpose systems or to be configured for specific uses or users, such as for financial transaction or reservation processing, for enterprise data storage, for global communications, or for other specific uses or users. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software resources that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
An information handling systems can include a firmware layer that operates to initialize and test the functions, features and hardware of the information handling system, to load a boot loader or an operating system from a storage device, and to provide an abstraction layer for the functions, features, and hardware of the information handling system. For example, an information handling system can include a Basic Input/Output System (BIOS), a Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI), or the like. The firmware layer can include hardware and software configuration settings that affect the operation of the information handling system. In order to protect an information handling system from having the hardware and software configuration settings misconfigured, or from malicious manipulation of the hardware and software configuration settings, the hardware and software configuration settings can be protected by an administrator password.
The use of the same reference symbols in different drawings indicates similar or identical items.